Down another hill they raced, and now they were near the stockyards. Here there was no pavement; here the mud and slush and slime splashed over the machine and around them, and the auto lurched and skidded dangerously.
“Slow down at the next turn,” Verbeck ordered, “I’ll drop off, and you keep on. Get away if you can—work back into town and give them the dodge. I can’t waste another minute—I’ve got to get to the big hall. And I can’t do it in the machine, for we can’t shake them off.”
“I can take you back nearer the hall, boss.”
“I’d not dare try to drop off there—they might see me. But here, where it is so dark—— At the next turning, Muggs!”
“Boss——”
“Here we are! Get away if you can, and if you do, come to the hall later. I’ll be all right!”
They made the turning, and Verbeck dropped off, and then Muggs opened her up again and dashed on along the muddy street, and behind him rushed the determined police in their two automobiles. They passed within forty feet of Roger Verbeck, who was inside a stockade, in close proximity to a hundred startled Texas steers.
Less than thirty minutes—and he was at the stockyards. There was not a second to waste. He could not glance at his watch to get the exact time without striking a match, and he did not dare do that because some watchman might see and apprehend him. He got out of the cattle pen and started running along the street in the dark, toward the nearest car line. Slush and mud splashed over his trousers, and he realized that he would not be the usual well-groomed Roger Verbeck society knew when he invaded the big hall.
He boarded a car, drew his overcoat close around him, and crouched in a corner. It seemed that the car stopped at every street, that it made wretched time. The blocks never before had seemed so long. Verbeck looked at his watch again, fearing he would be too late. He felt on the verge of screeching to the motorman to give the car greater speed.
Finally it was up in town, and Verbeck got off and rushed for the nearest taxicab stand. In an instant he was inside a machine, and a chauffeur was taking chances to earn the extra pay promised him if he reached the hall before midnight.